Guest User

Email: Is It Time to Just Ban It?

David Burkus, author of Under New Management, explains why some companies are taking extreme measures to limit electronic communication. Burkus is also a professor at Oral Roberts University and host of the podcast Radio Free Leader.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Welcome to the HBR Idea Cast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green Carmichael. Email is one of our most popular collaboration tools. Or maybe I should just say most common. The last time I heard someone say they loved email, it was the 90s. But today after 15 years of email overload, some companies are starting to limit it, and some are actually banning it outright.

So we’re going to talk about that trend with David Burkus, Professor at Oral Roberts University, host of the podcast Radio Free Leader, and author of the new book Under New Management. David, thank you for talking with us.

DAVID BURKUS: Sarah, thank you so much for having me.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So tell us a little bit about these companies that are starting to restrict email use. Are these like trendy Silicon Valley start ups?

DAVID BURKUS: So I actually expected that a little bit. But then if you think about it, the idea of a tech company banning email doesn’t really make much sense. Because supposedly, they should be all for it etc. The most common ones I’ve seen are actually automotive companies, and automotive companies in Europe.

And then, there’s one French based technology company that went all the way out to banning it entirely. But again, that seems counter-intuitive. You would think the high technology companies are the ones more attuned to being always on. But maybe it’s just that they’re the first ones to realize how dangerous it can be.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So what are some of the tactics that they’re using?

DAVID BURKUS: Obviously it varies by company. What I’ve started to see a lot of is a bucking against the trend of being always on mainly by either encouraging people to not send email after hours, at night that sort of thing. And some go as far as even shutting off the email servers entirely, which is actually I’m sort of now praying that my organization and that a lot of organizations would do this.

So the idea is if you are that type of night owl who likes to respond to emails at 9:30 at night or 2:00 in the morning or what have you, you can still respond to them, they just won’t send because the server is turned off until 8:00 the next morning. So the people who do want to go home and enjoy family time, enjoy relaxation, they’re not binged with that email at 9:30 and then binged with another at 8:00 AM the next morning. Hey, how come you haven’t responded yet?

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So it’s funny. That sounds like a very European solution I say as an American. And something that’s actually sort of appealing. And the other hand, some of the companies you talk about in the book have taken a totally different tactic, which is that they have made it so that in their companies they have a bespoke internal social network. And they’re hoping people use that instead of email. Is that just switching to a different platform, does that really work?

DAVID BURKUS: So the research that I’ve seen, I’m definitely in favor of it. And here’s why. As you said earlier, email is definitely our most common collaboration tool. But it’s a terribly designed tool for that. If you go back in the history of email, it was actually a side project by one of the original internet ARPANET engineers who just said hey, this is cool. We can send little packets of information in between each other. And then we layered on carbon copy and blind carbon copy and all that sort of stuff.

But the idea that you would treat your inbox as a to do list and all that sort of thing were never seen from before. Especially the idea of push email, where it shows up in your inbox whether you like it or not. So a lot of companies are either adopting more free form collaboration tools like Slack. Some of them are making it entirely, which is a mix of a message board and a real time collaboration tool.

And what I love about these technologies is that they are as open as a giant CC chain. But they are only open when you choose to go to them. In other words, when you need to hide and work on a project in isolation, you can do that. And when you need to get an update on the project you’re working on, then you can selectively choose to go over there and be a part of that thread.

The other thing that I love is if you’ve ever played around in a CC chain where there start to get those little side messages, those are really hard to do in these collaboration tools. In other words, you can see the entire history of a collaboration dialogue around a project even if you’re just today coming into the project, which a lot of times you can’t do with email. You can only see the ones that were sent to you. So as a tool that’s tailored towards group collaboration, these are dramatically better than email with the added benefit of not just showing up on your phone all the time, and having that little frustrating red number of new messages always nagging you in the bottom of your phone.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So you mentioned Slack and another company that does smart things is HipChat. Both of these are kind of these online collaboration tools that you talked about that are a little bit more like document sharing and instant messaging than email. If you haven’t used it, it’s kind of hard to imagine what it would be like. Suffice it to say these are new technology solutions to an old problem. Why is it so important that these are technological solutions rather than, say, managerial solutions or personal solutions? Why do we need a technical fix for this problem?

DAVID BURKUS: I think part of it is that technology caused the problem. In other words, back in the day when you had to actually get people into a room or call them on the phone or print up and send out a memo, we weren’t inundated with all of this information. As soon as email became really easy. In other words, the cost of writing it was really low. We didn’t really realize how high the cost of sending it all would be.

And so I think technology is a solution because you’re going to have to replace the email technology with something else. I think that’s probably the most interesting insight is that most of the companies that have banned internal email entirely find they have to do something to keep up with that level of communication around a project, because we’re expected to do that. We just need to figure out a way that’s more right for our organization and that reduces stress in the ways that banning email off hours, etc. kind of does. I think that’s the key tool.

Hip Chat and Slack are great. They’re great platforms. Most of the companies that are successful going to no email entirely are having to do a customized solution, because technology offers the ability to do that. To figure out what are our communication styles and needs, and now how do we custom tailor something towards that.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So whether you are considering banning email just overnight, or banning it internally, or switching to a different platform, what’s the impact on the employees? Does it actually reduce stress? Does it actually increase collaboration?

DAVID BURKUS: There’s a lot of really interesting research here. And the first is on the traditional stress and productivity numbers. We tend to assume when we clear out our email inbox that we’ve had a really productive day. Although, I’d argue we actually had a really reactive day because all we were doing was reacting to those emails. But there’s been a lot of studies. One of my favorites is out of the University of California at Irvine in collaboration with the US Army where they sort of alternated participants in a no email and email condition. And tracked their productivity with the different projects that they had to do, and also tracked their stress levels through a variety of different biological methods. And found that in essence, participants when they were in the no email condition had dramatically more focus, were reportedly more productive, and a lot less stressed.

And I think there was another interesting study that showed that restricting it to certain times, so not banning it entirely but just configuring it so that Outlook or Mac Mail or whatever you use, could only check at certain intervals instead of checking continuously for new email. Dramatically lowered stress almost as much as we see when we do tests of relaxation techniques and decreases in cortisol, etc. So as I like to say, restricting email to certain hours won’t take you to your happy place, but it will make you feel like you’re already there.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That sounds pretty appealing. So what’s the flip side of that? Because there was another study you mentioned in the book that I thought was really interesting. Where you were talking about what it does to people’s feelings when they receive emails late at night. It seemed like it makes you not like those people.

DAVID BURKUS: Yeah, so the research that we talk about in energy management talks often about these after work emails. What I think is really interesting is yes, people who receive them are more likely to get angry throughout the day. They’re more likely to get angry at their boss for feeling like they’re imposing something on him. And by the way, this is even the boss says, no rush on this. No reply needed, etc. It’s just the fact that they’re sending it communicates this idea that they were supposed to be on.

And actually, a lot of the participants that were surveyed, said that it interferes even with their personal life. So this is I think the ultimate example of the dangers of bringing your work home with you. If you’re even just keeping the email on your phone on, it’s actually interfering not just with your relationship with your boss, but it could be interfering with a relationship with your spouse or partner just as much. Which again, is extremely dangerous.

What I think is actually interesting, too, is this carries on into not just after hours, but can carry on into vacation email. I know I’m guilty of checking my work email on vacation. And I’m sure a lot of us are, too. And so the research says something similar. That’s why, actually, my favorite no email program is actually from the Daimler Group. And they call it the Mail on Holiday Policy.

We’ve all seen these out of office responders that still allow us to check our email. Well, they shut down your ability to see your email. And the autoresponder to people that send you email says I’m on holiday. And when I get back, this email is going to be deleted. So please send it to me on this day when I return to the office.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: OK, but that sounds appealing in one way. But isn’t the beauty of email that it’s asynchronous messaging and you’re Daimler’s policy makes it seem like OK, we’re just going to pretend this is instant communication now. Have we lost something that was great about email in the beginning?

DAVID BURKUS: Well yes. Email was asynchronous communication back when you had to listen through all the dial up noises and only check it a certain number of days. And that was back when we all got excited to hear you’ve got mail. Now, that’s like the worst thing we can see. And what I think is funny is actually back in the day when it was asynchronous, we always loved getting email and always dreaded getting junk mail in our inbox. And now it’s flipped.

If someone sends us an actual letter, we’re super excited. And so I think a lot of it is that as the speed of communication technologically increased, email became something that basically allowed us to instant message or text message. And if we could find a way to recover email and make it asynchronous, then I think that would be a beautiful thing. But too many of us just treat it like a text message. And so we are always on and always expected to respond.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So what do you do about this if you are not someone who works at one of these forward thinking companies. And you’re maybe not even senior enough to enact these policies on your team? Is there a way that you can unilaterally set yourself free? Or do you just have to go with the flow of your organization?

DAVID BURKUS: So I definitely think you are constrained inside of what your organization wants to do. And you have to feel out how far you can go on this individually. But I also think that you can make yourself or your team a pocket of excellence in this no email condition. The first is actually to realize the wonderful power of NRN, no reply needed. Just incorporating that into the subject line or the bottom of a lot of emails can actually help people feel like when they receive the email that oh, this is just informational, I don’t have to reply. No reply needed.

The other thing that you can do, and I find myself doing this since I wrote Under New Management, is communicate in the email that you’re OK not hearing a reply right away. So often, because I have children and a lot of times they’re up in the middle of the night and so I am, too, I’ll reply to one or two emails.

But I’ll always now make a point to say, no rush on this, please feel free not to reply for a day or two. I’m just sending it now because I have the opportunity, which I think adds on that level of this isn’t necessarily important. I’m not expecting you to reply right away. This is when I work, I realize it’s not good for you. And so that may be the way that we begin the conversation about how we can either reclaim email. If we don’t begin that conversation, then we’re probably going to start one about how we can ban it or restrict it entirely.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: What about if you just check email at certain times of the day? Can you train people, like I respond at 9:00, 12:00 and 4:30. Otherwise, don’t chase me.

DAVID BURKUS: So I definitely think you can. And I think a lot of times you don’t even need to announce it. A lot of our feeling to be always on is self-imposed. In other words, we receive an email at 8:30 in the morning, and we feel like they need to hear back from us right away. When in reality, we might actually wait until our 12:30 time when we respond to email.

So a lot of that is self-imposed. I do receive a lot of messages that say, I only reply at these sort of times. And I don’t know, I always feel weird receiving them.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So I think most of us have probably had this experience where it’s late at night, maybe we’re an early bird. We’ve gone to bed, it’s 11:00. Someone sends out an email and by the time you wake up in the morning, there’s like 20 emails from different people. And the last one’s at 3:00 in the morning saying like hey Sarah, are you going to chime in on this? And you’re thinking, I was supposed to be awake at 3:00 in the morning? What do you do in that competitive emailing environment?

DAVID BURKUS: So this is one area where I think our fears are actually greater than the reality experienced. I mean, I tend to assume with humans most people are reasonable. And so you reply at 8:30 or 9:00 when you get back and say something simple like, so sorry I’m not seeing this until now. And then chime in. Most of the time, our feeling to reply quickly is self-imposed.

Now there are those hyper competitive environments where individuals feel like if they’re first to respond, then they’re checking office politics points, etc. You have to ask yourself whether or not you want to do that, or whether or not you want to get a good night’s sleep. I think in reality, most of the time it’s because people have different schedules. As I said, I have two kids and one of them is still waking up in the middle of the night for midnight feedings and that sort of thing. And it keeps me awake and sometimes I reply to email while I’m waiting for him to go back to sleep.

I would hate to think that that’s actually imposing people to assume they have to reply. And so part of this is just having that honest conversation on your team. But if we’re always just replying and never really thinking that we need to talk about these ground rules for email etiquette, then we’ll never have that conversation. We might find ourselves overstressed. And we might find ourselves where we need to ban email.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So you know the other thing I have noticed as email’s gotten more and more out of control is that you have these competing systems where people are trying to unilaterally impose their system on other people. So it’s like, I’m coming back from vacation, I’m deleting everything. Send it to me again. Someone else will say oh, well I’m only checking email at these times. Someone else will say, well I’m busy writing a book so please don’t email me. You can tweet at me. Everyone’s got these systems and I’m like, I don’t want to have to memorize everyone I email with’s different system.

So there’s got to be a better way than like we each come up with our own rules and play our own game ourselves like a bunch of toddlers.

DAVID BURKUS: Well, this is definitely what I love about the Mail on Holiday Program is that it gives permission to everybody to adopt the I’m on vacation, and I’m going to delete these emails thing. I’m at the position where I would love to self-impose that. But you’re exactly right, I think even if I said that to other people, the response would be like, what a jerk. Why can’t he just not respond until I get back? The biggest thing is, again, I think a lot of our fears are self-imposed. And so we don’t communicate what our email preferences are.

And you’re right, we definitely don’t need to be in a situation where we have to memorize each one. The thing that I think we have to keep at the tops of our heads is exactly what you suggested. There was a time when email was asynchronous. And that was a beautiful time where we experienced a lot less stress and a lot more fun at home with our spouse or our partner or our kids. So whatever steps we take to get back to that. And by the way, we may not even need to say anything to get back to that. People just might get used to the idea that oh yeah, Sarah probably isn’t going to get back to me until 8:30 tomorrow morning.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: All right. Well I’d like to go back to that happy place. So David, thank you for helping us out today.

DAVID BURKUS: Thank you so much for having me.

SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: That was David Burkus, a Professor at Oral Roberts University who we talked to on Skype. His book is Under New Management. David is also a regular contributor to hbr.org where, of course, you can get in touch with us. You can also reach us on Twitter at harvardbiz. And as always, of course, you can also leave us a review on iTunes.